They forgot to name me when I was born, so I called myself Grief. It was the only sound that stayed after my mother’s last breath shattered the ceiling. No one heard me fall. They buried me alive in the space between their smiles, beneath floorboards that creaked like broken promises. I grew up listening to footsteps that never stopped to ask why I never knocked back. I learned to cry in reverse. Tears turned to dust before they reached my cheeks. Even sadness abandoned me. When I spoke, the words bled. So I bit off my tongue and swallowed it whole. It’s still in me rotting, screaming without a mouth. I once loved a boy with hands like warmth, but he touched me like I was fiction. When I told him I was drowning in the silence I sleep with, he told me to swim harder and left before I sank. Now the walls hold me tighter than people ever did. They whisper lullabies that sound like apologies I never got. I don’t pray anymore. God has too many faces and none of them looked down here. If you ever hear knocking beneath the bed, don’t answer. It’s just me trying to leave a place I was never invited to.